Wallowa County locals air views on forest plan

Published 6:00 pm Friday, July 25, 2025

U.S. Forest Service takes public comment on revising plan to manage national forests in the Blue Mountains

ENTERPRISE — After years of working to revise the Blue Mountains National Forests Land Management Plan, about 60 people turned out Monday, July 21, to take advantage of an opportunity to air their views on it.

U.S. Forest Service supervisors Shaun McKinney of the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest and Eric Watrud of the Umatilla National Forest led the hearing at Cloverleaf Hall in Enterprise to take public comment on revising the 1990s-era plan for managing much of the forestland in Eastern Oregon. It covers the 5.4 million acres in the Wallowa-Whitman, Umatilla and Malheur national forests. The Forest Service aims to complete the revision by 2027.

The National Forest Management Act of 1976 requires each National Forest to prepare a plan and revise it every 15 years to address new economic and social conditions, new resource conditions and new scientific information. The plans for each of the Blue Mountains national forests are from 1990, and significant changes have occurred since. The last plan was developed in 2014.

In addition to Forest Service officials and locals, numerous local government officials were present, including Sen. Todd Nash, R-Enterprise, and Wallowa County Commissioners John Hillock and Lisa Collier.

“The draft we’re looking at hasn’t been working and that’s why we’re here,” Nash said.

Enterprise resident and former Oregon State University Extension agent John Williams agreed, saying, “The original plan is very bad and needs to be redone.”

Collier agreed and encouraged the public to get their questions answered.

Issues of concern

McKinney said the Forest Service will be taking comments through mid-2025. Then there will be a 90-day comment period. After that, 60 days to develop a final environmental impact statement and another 90 days for approval of the final plan.

Issues of particular concern in Wallowa County, where most of the forestland is Wallowa-Whitman, are road closures the Forest Service might consider, wildlife, forest health and access.

The county commissioners, in dealing with a related issue, have opposed the closure of any more roads in the 86,500-acre Morgan Nesbit Forest Resiliency Project southeast of Joseph. They don’t want any more roads closed without their approval on a case-by-case basis. The county is trying to get the Forest Service to agree to let road closures be up to the commissioners, as the public desires forest access for recreation, hunting, firewood collection, hiking, cattle grazing and other activities.

But the Forest Service has what it calls “travel management,” the formal process of designating specific roads, trails and areas for different types of travel (motorized and nonmotorized) to create a sustainable transportation system that balances public access, environmental protection and resource-management objectives.

There’s also timber harvest. For decades, Wallowa County relied on timber harvest that provided jobs in mills that produced lumber for the market. Those mostly closed in the 1990s eliminating jobs and the lumber market.

McKinney said he expects the revised plan will include an “uptick in timber harvest” and clearing the land for fire prevention.

The plan also will provide for grazing permits for livestock. Nash said there are numerous cases of livestock producers who have not received the permits they should have. Livestock are a major economic factor in Wallowa County.

McKinney said the Forest Service is about a third of the way through the revision process. He noted the plan will not add any more acres of wilderness, as that is an action only Congress can take.

When it comes to wildlife, one man emphasized the gray wolves that have migrated to Oregon from Idaho are not the same subspecies that was here originally. He also noted wolves and coyotes can interbreed, but it’s legal to kill coyotes but not wolves — unless they are attacking livestock.

For more information about the revision plan, click here or call 541-278-3716 or 541-523-6391 or email sm.fs.bluesforests@usda.gov.